Abstract

A pulsed NMR and magnetic susceptibility study of the electronic structure is reported for the rapidly quenched metallic glass systems: (Ni0.50Pd0.50)100-xPx (where 16≦x≦26.5), (NiyPd1-y)80P20 (where 0.20≦y≦0.80), and (NiyPt1-y)75P25 (where 0.20≦y≦0.68). The 31P Knight shift and nuclear spin-lattice relaxation rate in all three systems depend only on the P concentration, x, and not the Ni concentration, y, nor whether the second transition metal is Pd or Pt. Both the shift and relaxation rate for 31P are attributed solely to the direct contact hyperfine interaction. The 195Pt Knight shift and magnetic susceptibility for (NiyPt1-y)75P25 do depend on both the Ni concentration and temperature, enabling a determination of the contributions to the shift arising from the direct contact hyperfine and core polarization interactions. The results are discussed in terms of a rigid two-band picture with estimates being made for the s- and d-band densities of states and hyperfine coupling constants. There is strong evidence for a transfer of charge from the P metalloid atoms (M) to the d states of the transition-metal atoms (T), which is consistent with the dense random packing model for T100-xMx metallic glasses.